Particulate matter and manganese exposures in Indianapolis, Indiana

Published 2001 in Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology

Abstract

The distribution of PM2.5 and manganese (Mn) personal exposures was determined over a 4-month period in Indianapolis, IN, at a time when the gasoline additive, methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (MMT), was not being used. The data collection period coincided with the data collection period in the Toronto, ON, study, where MMT had been used as a gasoline additive for over 20 years. The inferential or target population consisted of noninstitutionalized residents of the Indianapolis area during the monitoring period (from May 1996 through August 1996) who were at least 16 years old. The survey instruments used in this study (and also in Toronto) included a household screener form (HSF), a study questionnaire (SQ), and a time and activity questionnaire (TAQ). The SQ was administered to elicit information about the participant and his/her activities, occupation, and surroundings that might be relevant to his/her exposure to particles and Mn. In addition to the personal particulate matter (PM) and elemental 3-day monitoring, 240 participants completed a TAQ on a daily basis during the actual monitoring period. Also, a subset of participants had 3-day outdoor and indoor stationary monitoring at their home (approximately 58 observations), and sampling was conducted at a fixed site (approximately thirty-three 3-day observations). The quality of data was assessed and compared to the Toronto study in terms of linearity of measurement, instrument and method sensitivity, measurement biases, and measurement reproducibility. Twenty-six of the sample filters were subjected to two analyses to characterize the within-laboratory component of precision in terms of relative standard deviations (RSDs). The median RSD for Mn was 8.7%, as compared to 2.2% for Toronto. The quality assurance (QA) laboratory exhibited a clear positive bias relative to the primary laboratory for Al and Ca, but no systematic difference was evident for Mn. A high interlaboratory correlation (>0.99) was also attained for Mn. Mean field blank results for PM and Mn were 0.87 μg/m3 and 0.71 ng/m3, respectively, which were comparable to the Toronto study. The median RSDs for colocated fixed site and residential samples ranged from 2.2% to 9.0% for PM and from 8.8% to 15.3% for Mn, which were close to those observed in Toronto. For the PM10, the 90th percentile indoors was 124 μg/m3 compared with 54 μg/m3 outdoors. This pattern was even more pronounced for the PM2.5 data (90th percentiles of 92 μg/m3 indoors vs 30 μg/m3 outdoors). Personal PM2.5 was somewhat higher than the indoor levels, but the percentiles seemed to follow the more highly skewed pattern of the indoor distribution. This difference was largely due to the presence of some smokers in the sample; e.g., exclusion of smokers led to a personal exposure distribution that was more similar to the outdoor distribution. The estimated 90th percentile for the nonsmokers' personal exposures to PM was 43 μg/m3 compared with 84 μg/m3 for the overall population. In general, the Indianapolis PM levels of a given type and cut size were somewhat higher than the levels observed in Toronto, e.g., the median and 90th percentile for the personal PM2.5 exposures were 23 and 85 μg/m3, respectively, in Indianapolis, while in Toronto, the corresponding percentiles were 19 and 63 μg/m3. The cities' distributions of the proportion of the PM10 mass in the 2.5-μm fraction appeared similar for the residential outdoor data (medians of 0.67 and 0.65 for Indianapolis and Toronto, respectively, and 90th percentiles of 0.83 for both cities). For the indoor data, Indianapolis tended to have a larger portion of the mass in the fine fraction (median of 0.80 compared to 0.70 for Toronto). Unlike the PM, the Indianapolis indoor Mn concentration levels were substantially lower than the outdoor levels for both PM sizes, and the median personal levels for Mn in PM2.5 appeared to fall between the median indoor and outdoor levels. The personal Mn exposure distributions exhibited more skewness than the indoor or outdoor distributions (e.g., the means for the personal, indoor, and outdoor distributions were 7.5, 2.6, and 3.5 ng/m3, respectively, while the medians were 2.8, 2.2, and 3.2 ng/m3, respectively). At least a substantial portion of the high end of the personal exposure distribution appeared to be associated with occupational exposures to Mn. In general, the Mn levels in both cut sizes in Indianapolis were approximately 5 ng/m3 smaller than those in Toronto (e.g., the estimated median and mean levels for personal Mn exposures in PM2.5 were 2.8 and 7.5 ng/m3, respectively, in Indianapolis, but were 8.0 and 13.1 ng/m3 in Toronto). For the nonoccupational subgroups with no exposure to smoking and no subway riders in the two cities, the medians (2.6 ng/m3 in Indianapolis and 7.8 ng/m3 in Toronto) were similar to those for the overall populations, but the means were substantially smaller (3.1 ng/m3 in Indianapolis and 9.2 ng/m3 in Toronto). The median proportion of Mn in the fine fraction (relative to the PM10 Mn) for Indianapolis was 0.39 for outdoors and 0.55 for indoors; these ratios were somewhat smaller than the corresponding Toronto medians (0.52 and 0.73). The study found high correlations for particulates and Mn between personal exposures and indoor concentrations, and between outdoor and fixed site concentrations, and low correlations of personal and indoor levels with outdoor and fixed site levels. The pattern was similar to that observed for Toronto, but slightly more pronounced. The PM10 Mn concentrations (log scale) generally exhibited stronger associations among these various measures than the PM2.5 Mn concentrations. Comparisons of the particulate distributions between PTEAM (Riverside, CA) and the Indianapolis and Toronto studies were also made.